A heat-assisted, magnetic recording (HAMR) data storage medium uses a high magnetic coercivity material that is able to resist superparamagnetic effects (e.g., thermally-induced, random, changes in magnetic orientations) that currently limit the areal data density of conventional hard drive media. In a HAMR device, a small portion or “hot spot” of the magnetic medium is locally heated to its Curie temperature, thereby allowing the magnetic orientation of the medium to be changed at the hot spot and thus be written to by a transducer. After the heat is removed, the region maintains its magnetic state, thereby reliably storing the data for later retrieval.